ADULT READING GROUP IDEAS

Here are some ideas for you to help get your Reading Group reading:

Reading Cities

How to get a whole city reading. Plus Reading the City books, films and reading activities based around urban culture.

Reading Group Twins

A chance to share your reading experiences with other readers from another country. Helps with cultural understanding and is agood way for English language students to practice their language skills. Find out How to find a Reading Group twin.

English Language Teaching

Reading groups can link into English Language Teaching – providing an excellent complementary reading list. A carefully selected range of additional reading allows the student to gain a deeper entry into the UK, into what it means to be British, to speak English and about what the UK means to those students and so on.

English Dialect and Cultural English

Students studying the complexities of English dialect and cultural English (whether in English Language Teaching or in a wider Academic context) can incorporate reading groups that explore dialect and regionalism (a menu of James Kelman, Irvine Welsh alongside Caryl Phillips perhaps) – see the UK Diversity reading compass

Book collections

A British Council office that hopes to attract a fresh, new, targeted audience into its offices can tailor its small book collection or library accordingly, using information spaces and Knowledge and Learning Centres to house reading groups, both virtual and real

Partnerships

British Council arts programmes can develop reading groups in partnership with other organisations in order to develop the audience for an event or festival

Virtual Reading Groups

If you have limited physical space you can develop a reading project online, using the enCompassCulture chat and web board resources

Young Learners Centres

British Council Young Learners Centres can use the enCompassCulture children’s literature area to develop reading lists and resources for young students

Literature and Science

Discuss the current crossover thinking in-between these two areas in the Science Reading Compass

Management and literature

Use the management reading compass in conjunction with ideas from the Teaching Management through Literature Bibliography

The Film of the Book

Reel Books - use our page to scren bibliography Reel Books to select contemporary fiction, poetry and plays that have been adapted into film. It is listed in the Booklist section of the site

Diaspora writing

Explore the experiences of exiled writers living and writing in the UK using the UK Diversity Reading Compass. 

Multiculturalism

The UK is a multicultural society – use the UK Diversity or World UK reading compassses to discover aspects of this, for example,  who does London belong to? Hanan al Shaykh’s Only in London provides a glimpse of a very unique London when read alongside Peter Ackroyd’s London: The Biography, and Diran Adebayo’s Some Kind of Black gives an audience a glimpse into a a true sense of multicultural co-existence in one city. Take a look at our Reading the City bibliography with books, films and reading group activites.

Selection

Use the webboard discussion to prompt you to make your choice

In Translation

You could select books from enCompassCulture to read in translation if your reading group has limited English or choose a book of short stories

Book prizes

Prize shortlists are good discussion books. Use the prizes choice on each reading compass to make your selection 

Book events

Why not link your reading to forthcoming events in the reading world. Look at our Calendar of Events for ideas

Contemporary culture

Dive under the surface of contemporary culture by reading the stories, poems, cultural commentaries and writings. Reading contemporary fiction and non-fiction takes you straight into the subconscious of the country. All of the areas we hear so much about, from multiculturalism to devolution, and the contemporary trends that are currently hotly debated can all be accessed through literature.  Why not use enCompassCulture to discover the UK culture and compare and contrast with books on the World Reading Compass, then discuss them with other readers from around the world

Readers' Notes

Use the Readers' Notes to stimulate discussion of books. We are building up a set of readers' notes over the next year for 12 books featured on the site.

You could also take a look at Creative Reading Projects in the UK and Where can I join a Reading Group? for useful ideas for your Reading Group.